PocketGear Sales Ratio vs. Handango Sales Ratio

[sponge]

[fzammetti]

[sponge]

[Michael Y]

Okay, I'll make a (slightly) better analogy:

A pickpocket steals a 5-dollar bill out of your wallet and uses some of it to buy you a $0.25 pack of gum.

[Guest]

that's still the same.. single property stolen. It is more like someone sneaking into a movie theater and then complaining that the seats were uncomfortable and complaining about it.

[fzammetti]

And yet another post degrades into someone trying to justify piracy or tell us why it isn't as bad as stealing my car.

Theft is theft is theft is theft, whether it's the Maltese Falcon or a program that I can duplicate at will makes not one bit of difference. To say otherwise is simply trying to justify an unjustifiable position.

But if your own morals and sense of right don't tell you it's wrong, my arguments surely won't.

I'll try anyway...

I think we all agree that stealing my car is bad. At least, I HOPE we all agree on that point.

Many arguments are made to justify piracy... No property is actually stolen so it doesn't matter... I wouldn't have bought the program anyway so no harm done... The program wasn't good enough to be sold at the price the developer set, so pirating it was OK...

* No property is actually stolen so it doesn't matter... When you steal my car, you deny me the use of my vehicle by denying me the physical property itself. Since as people are fond of saying with regard to software, there is no physical property to be deprived of, we have to judge software differently. What you are in fact stealing from me is THE SERVICE OF MY PROGRAM. Since that service was all I had in essence, you are depriving me of the one thing I had, and you are depriving me of income that otherwise might have been derived from that service. Think of it this way... If you force someone at gunpoint to mow your lawn, you are not stealing any physical property obviously, but you are in fact stealing from them a service that you otherwise would have paid for. Any given program provides a service, whether it's a game, an electronic calculation utility or a backup program, and if you didn't pay for that service, YOU ARE STEALING. How is that any less wrong than stealing my car? You can steal a woman's pride by raping her... Are you going to tell me that pride is A MORE TANGIBLE ASSET than a piece of software? (To the unfortunate woman I suppose it is, but to the rest of us that's a clearly specious argument).

* I wouldn't have bought the program anyway so no harm done. How silly is this?!? If you wanted it enough to pirate it, you wanted it enough to pay for it. I guess I don't have a problem with a person who gets a copy of a program and then never uses it. This again goes back to the stealing of a service. If the program is just sitting on a CD someone and you don't use it (or share it with anyone who does use it), I don't see a problem there except for the POSSIBILITY that you might use it. I however am not willing to say the possibility of a wrongdoing is on the same level as a wrongdoing itself, so I'll let this go.

* The program wasn't good enough to be sold at the price the developer set, so pirating it was OK. Another patently stupid argument. It is your right to not purchase a product you feel is overpriced. It is not your God-given right to have ANYTHING, save those things you need for basic survival (and in most places, even THAT'S not a given). You clearly do not have a right for example to a copy of Snails under any circumstances (aside from the developers telling you that you do of course). It is your right to not purchase, which by extension will nearly always cause a reduction in price when the developer sees that no one is buying at the price they set. Market economy at work folks. As noble as stealing from the rich to give to the relatively poor sounds, Robin Hood was still a thief, and so are people who are unwilling to pay a given price for a program and instead get a pirated copy.

Ok, that's enough from me.

[Conan]

While I have not had 'shady'purchases getting in touch I have had a few purchases with stolen credit cards which have cost me. When sites allow non-verifyable e-mail this is a possibility.

On the software theft front the bottom line is that all the nonesense about people with stolen copies being useful is just an excuse. If an item is stolen then the thief is a criminal. They might not do it in their corner store where they can get caught but they think it's safe & somehow not really a crime to copy software. We've all done it but it's still wrong ( apologies to that one very honest sole out there )

ps: I also think free software is bad. Whoever started the trend should be punished.

[fzammetti]

Wow, there's a real hard-liner for you: Conan says "Free software is BAD"! News at 11

I don't go that far myself... I certainly think there is a place for free software. Hell, without Thierry's free software contributions I may not be making games now! Conan, the same goes for you I believe?

Did that statement really come out as you meant?

[Conan]

Yes, free software as an idea is kind of silly. (To my knowledge Thierry gave up PF partly because he was getting nothing for it btw)

If the world had not gotten into this crazy state where people regard software as somehow not the same as anything else that people work hard to create then we the authors would be better off. Free software contributes to the idea that you should not have to pay for anything soft. It's a wrong notion but it's got such a hold that we won't change it.

I can understand to an extent people who want to go against huge monopolies like M$ (not me, I'm a Microsoftie & spend $$$thousands per annum with Bill) but to give away the result of your hard work is not sensible as it does not put food on the plate.

[JeremieWeldin]

Sorry, I was the "anon" poster above, I was too lazy to sign in.. heh. I in no way intended to state that because an item wasn't stolen that it was justifiable. Theft of service is still theft and I agree with you there 100%. I was just stating that steeling an item is different that steeling a service in semantics, not in morality.

Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.

[JeremieWeldin]

Me again. I think that the idea of free software is fine. I think that when one develops a piece of software it is a good thing that it is up to that person to decide what they want in return for it's use. Each of us have different goals in mind when we code. I personally am thankful that gapidraw is free.

I don't believe that people have the mindset that software should be free. Look at MS... um yeah lots of money there. If you want something bad enough then you will be willing to pay for it.

If you want to charge for games, then you ought to ensure that it is more convenient to purchase the game than it is to grab it from a warez site or from alt.binaries.warez.pocketpc or similar newsgroups. You should also provide something that people want and can't get from 8 other developers. If you do that then people WILL pay for your product... look at Snails.

[Conan]

On this free software question think of it this way:-
Your best friend says can you help me paint a fence. You say sure thing & get beer & pizza out of it. A chap you pass in the street says ' I just got this fencing. You look strong, gonna come round & build it for me'. You look at him strangely & walk away fast.

On the creative side if you paint pictures you give them free to relatives but not to strangers.

Spending months of time & then giving away the results of your labour to people you don't know does not happen anywhere else.

I've never lowered the price of my software to match good but cheap titles as I value my own time. My downloads are comparable (ie: in the same ballpark)to many 'big' titles & though on sale for 3 years I still get the cheques.

[JeremieWeldin]

FREEWARE:
That's great for you. However, I find that people don't come buy and ask to have one help paint a fence in real life, but if they did, there is no harm in asking. Some of us would help just to help someone, and you can always just say No, or ask for some compensation beforehand.

Same with software. No one is saying, Conan, you need to develop free software or you aren't going to get paid. The fact that you DO get paid for your software is a prime arguement that people WILL pay for software if they want it, even if there is free software out there from other people.

The current practices are good for everyone involved. The leeches get some free software from developers that aren't worried about making a buck, and the people that wanted quality software pay for it.

WAREZ:
My main points for not fighting warez, is that 1.) its going to happen, just accept it. With a digital medium the more you try to protect it from piracy, the more you alienate your paying customer base. and 2.) Most of the people that warez things do so because they weren't going to buy it anyway. Those that were going to buy it still do.

Just look at MP3's vs CD's when napster was still around. The industry dind't suffer a loss just because MP3's were around. Also look at MS Windows. Most of the people I know run illegal copies unless it came with their PC. Those people would not pay for windows if they couldn't find a warez, they would just deal with the old one that came with their PC. And either way, MS is making a TON on it.

Don't get me wrong... i still think its wrong, i just think that until we have a better way of preventing it then its useless to worry about it and i don't think it cuts into the costs enough to spend time on it. Basically when you try to fight the warez rats, you are spending time that you could use to code or go outside and dance in the rain and shit.

Feel free to disagree with me.

[sponge]

[damian]